Song of Distant Stars
by Celebdil
Summary: With Galadriel gone, Celeborn finds himself haunted by an old lover. Tie in with 'Summer Lightning' - Slash, Elu ThingolCeleborn
1. Default Chapter

Song of Distant Stars 

Chapter 1

* * *

The glade was cool and dim, the only illumination golden drifts of sunlight between trees in full summer-leaf. Celeborn lazily opened his eyes, as the warmth at his back shifted and a low laugh vibrated through him from the one who lay curled around him, steel-silver hair covering their nakedness. 

"We should get back, how long does it take to find a lost horse?" The deep voice voice was drowsy, reluctant. Fingertips drifted across Celeborn's hip, closed lightly over the ridge of bone, digging in slightly as the King of the Teleri sighed and kissed the nape he had just exposed to his mouth.

Celeborn watched a bee make its drunken way between tiny clumps of a bright yellow flower, its body velvet soft as he reached out to gently stroke a finger over its back. It buzzed at him, and crawled down into the depths of the flower as he smiled and dipped his head, silently inviting further caresses from that warm and knowing mouth. Shivering as the hand travelled up that delightful place where leg joins body, he pushed his hips back into the cradle of Elu's. He felt the warmth between his beloved's thighs stir, though they had loved but moments ago, and he thought again how lucky he was, how blessed, to have found a love of which he could never grow tired, a desire that would never be sated.

"She had wandered far, ere we sought her," he said. "It could take all day to find her. She is your best mare. I think bringing her back may safely justify a night spent searching..." The words trailed off on a gasp as Elu moved more firmly against him, breathing across the sensitive tip of Celeborn's ear.

The king's voice was muffled as he trailed his lips down the side of Celeborn's neck, "Ai, you do my conscience no good at all, but you taste of summer, and I would fill my cup ere we return." As he spoke, Elu turned his lover onto his back, bending his head to take the youth's mouth with his. His body settled atop Celeborn's slighter one.

Wrapping his long legs around the King's taut waist, the younger elf smilingly murmured against firm lips, "Still tempted to return before nightfall, hir nin?"

But Elu was no longer in the mood for speech. He growled a response against Celeborn's nipple, making him squirm and tighten his thighs, toes curling with pleasure at the weight and warmth that pinned him down, the slow progress of tongue and lips over his skin. Talk was forgotten, all thought of returning to their people lost once more as the late afternoon sun gilded them, elegantly sculpted forms, entangled among the soft grass of the forest floor...

* * *

Celeborn woke abruptly, tangled in the light covers of his bed, his gasp loud in the night-shadowed room. Held fast by the power and vividness of the dream, he lay a moment, his heart pounding and his body tense and aroused. At his window, a light breeze lifted the light silk covering. He blinked and drew a deep steadying breath, somewhere between laughter and a sob. _The curtain!_ It was wind blown silk, and not the warmth of a sword-calloused hand which had caressed him.

Shutting his eyes, he forced his mind from the stab of emotion. Too deep to bear, too deep even to gaze on; at least, not now, now while he was still drowsy, still wrapped in the enchantment of that scene.

Slowly, untangling himself from dream-wound sheets, he sat, brought his long legs up so that he could hug himself, resting his chin on his knees. Night was slowly slipping toward day, and his hair was touched by the fading light of Isil; a spill of silver, warmer against his skin than the chill, empty bed.

Shutting his eyes, he gave himself up - just for a moment - to the bright comfort of the dream. It had never happened, he and his lover had never lain together in the warmth of Anar. He had never watched that big hand trace a shimmer of gold over his skin, until the light of Aman that ever lit his king from within melded with sunlight and blinded him with its beauty.

What madness was it that scant years after Galadriel had sailed, he was visited by dreams of a lover and a beloved in Mandos these many centuries? He had not dreamed of Elu in millennia, not while Noldorin gold had slept by his side, her slim body pressed to his. It would have been a betrayal. Was it not a betrayal even now? Yet it was not the first time, nor even the fifth. It had become a regular thing, a haunting.

"Ai, Elu!" he said, and rested his head in his hands, to block out even the watching walls of his empty room. "Please... Why now after so long? Why must you plague me now?" Tears pricked against his palms as he dug his fingertips bruisingly into his face. "No more pain. Enough! I was not permitted to keep you, and I could not keep her. Why mock me with what I may not have? Leave me be!"

Quiet music threaded into the night from the courtyard outside, mingling with the rain-like music of the fountain. A love song. Some fool - probably Elladan, who was far too poetic for his own good - was sitting in the trees below his window, playing an ancient, plaintive duet from Doriath.

Celeborn shook his head, water-bright hair flashing in the moonshadows. He was being melodramatic. Clearly he had merely conjured this image of the unattainable out of music and silk, and his own loneliness. There was no need to look further, or suppose himself wound about by omens. When had he ever been a seer, after all?

Standing, he wrapped himself in a long robe, meaning to go to the window, look down over the empty beauty of Imladris. Now he was awake, the song would - perhaps - bring him serenity.

But as he turned, something caught his eye; a flash of crystal in the soft shadows. He had not troubled to unpack since arriving in Imladris. The few personal items he had been able to bear bringing with him from Lorien still lay in his saddlebags, against the further wall. Last night, he had moved one of them, searching for a knife of Galadhrim design Elrohir had wanted to see. The pack he had moved fell open, spilling several items to the floor.

In the corner between clothes-chest and wall lay the source of that glitter. A keepsake, carelessly let fall. Only one end was visible, lying outside the deep shade, sparkling with a muted fire, throwing tiny speckles of reflected light across the floor. He knew it at once. If he moved closer, drew it out from its concealment, he would find a gull feather, soft and grey; the beads about its quill shaped by the very hands that had spread their warmth across his dreaming skin.

Celeborn stared at it, struck motionless, his attempts to explain himself faltering back into helpless awe. It must mean something. It must. But what? Ai, Iluvatar! What did it mean?

Gathering himself, he walked the few steps to where the feather lay, mercilessly eloquent, soft as the shadows which covered it. As if he tempted some wild creature to come to his hand, he knelt quietly, reached out for it, tentatively; picked it up. Running his fingers over it, he watched as it flexed under the gentle pressure, as light from the crystals slid across his skin. Unable to help himself, the dream vivid in his mind, he brought it to his mouth, drew its softness across his lips and cheek.

Holding it, he looked down. Further back, in the darkness, lay the dull sheen of a stone blade. It was as though the past had come alive to beckon him. Trifles, kept out of sentiment, were suddenly become portents. Wood and stone spoke to him, but he did not know what they were trying to say. He knew only the stir of old memories. Absently, as if to soothe away a recent ache, he put a hand to his right shoulder, rubbed at a wound he had thought long healed.

As he did so, the fading moonlight flashed bright on the ring he wore. He blanched in horror. What was he _doing_!

Swiftly, he placed the feather back in the pack, stuffed the knife alongside it, closed and buckled the leather strap and turned his back on it. There. He had it trapped - the past, the dream, the haunting; whatever it was. Bowing his head, he raised his hands into the light, where the golden ring on his finger gleamed in the dimming starlight. He touched it, turned it, feeling its smoothness, the many little nicks and scratches which had softened its first glitter over the centuries, each one the mark of an experience that bound him to his wife; a long defeat, fought by the side of Galadriel.

The thought of her was no respite from pain. She too he had lost. She too had found something that enthralled her more than he did. She too he still loved, as he had sworn to do, until the end of time.

Closing his eyes, he conjured her image, the fire and gold that was Galadriel; a fire that had rescued him from this obsession once before, long ago. Yet through that image, as familiar as his own heartbeat, shone a deeper light, the colour of steel, mocking his attempts to forget it.

With a sound of frustration, he dropped his hand and turned away. Dawn was now touching the Eastern horizon and he faced it resolutely, turning his back on the West with all of his stubborn will. _I have no time for dreams, be they living or dead._

Dressing quickly, he sat on the bed to don his boots. Braiding his hair deftly, he shook it back and stretched, easing the last vestiges of sleep from his muscles. Then he picked up his bow and quiver and left the room, letting himself out into the echoing corridor.

* * *

Anar was setting by the time he returned, a young stag slung across his saddle-bow. A day spent alone in the woods surrounding Imladris had settled Celeborn's sprits, and he sang softly to himself as he rode through the open gates, laying a gentle hand on his horse's neck. In the dimness of the stables, he slid down easily from the big stallion, and, setting the deer aside, turned to fetch grain from the bin at the end of the wide corridor.

_No..._

A figure stood in the dimness, further in, almost obscured by shadow. Slanting light from the doorway fell soft on the powerful line of his shoulder and neck, on the twilight hair, the colour of mist and early stars. His face was shadowed, but Celeborn did not need to see it to know who stood there.

"Elu?"

He had lifted a hand before he could stop himself, reaching out to touch, entreating; before sanity returned. Snarling in anger and pain, he clenched his fists, drove himself at the spectre - if this was a trick, its culprit would pay a high price!

But his onrush passed through air, particles of grain floating in shafts of light. There were chinks in the roof where birds had made their nests, a stack of loose hay, an empty barrel, and the wall. Cursing and shaken, he staggered backwards into the evening bustle of the stable yard and near collided with Arwen.

She laughed at first, the gems twinkling in her hair, and her grey eyes more starlike still. "Daerada! I saw you from the library window, and thought I would come to meet you. You had fine sport!"

Aragorn had gone to bring the King's Justice to Arnor, to visit Fornost and plan new cities. Arwen had chosen to stay in her father's house, visit her brothers and grandfather, and bless them all with her obvious happiness. Normally he would have teased her, knowing that she watched not for him, but for Elessar's return. But today the bond of love that lead his granddaughter into death seemed to resonate sickly within him, and he looked at her with stricken eyes.

She sobered at once, took his elbow in fine, strong hands, warm and real. "What is it? As Elessar's folk would say, you look as if you had seen a ghost."

"I have," he said, numbly. "Or something like it."

Straightening up, he scrubbed his hands across his face, took a steadying breath, and then looked at her again. She resembled Elrond, and through him Melian. Her mind was alike to that of Melian, of Galadriel, rather than to his own. At home more in the world of spirit and power than his own practical craft. It was a wisdom he had long known himself deficient in, one for which he had learned to lean on others. Part of his pride was that he knew his limits well, and was not ashamed to ask for help when he needed it.

Another was that he did not run away. From overwhelming force he might retreat, but only to regroup and fight on. Too long he had fled from these dreams, retreated before this haunt into helplessness. It would not do. Now he would take advice, and act, and run no more. Grandchild though she was, Arwen was Queen of Gondor and Arnor, powerful, intelligent and wise. What better person to turn to?

"I need your counsel," he said, quietly. "I cannot work this out on my own."

* * *

A servant kindled the fire in Arwen's sitting room, went around with a taper, lighting candles in their sconces. One of her ladies in waiting from Gondor brought in a tray with small savoury pasties, still warm from the oven, spiced summer pudding and cool wine. She sat herself down, unobtrusively in the corner, her raw-boned face and raven's wing hair an echo of Elros. The reminder was pleasing, or cruel, depending on how one looked at it.

"You may go, Indis," said Arwen, and opened the window. A steady drizzle had begun to fall, wreathing the distant trees in mist. The air blew in, soft and wet and fresh.

"It is not the custom in Gondor for the Queen to sit alone in her chamber with any guest,"said the lady, cautiously, biting off her thought incomplete. From the expression in her eyes, Celeborn could not tell whether she was going to say 'especially a man' or 'especially an elf.' It amused him either way.

"It is the custom in Imladris," Arwen smiled charmingly, waited, and at length the silence, and the regard of two pairs of elvish eyes, ancient and profound, drove her to leave, further protests unspoken.

Celeborn poured wine for them both, looked around at the fair room with its tapestries, red and gold, bright with light and the dancing warmth of the fire. There was a quiet patience in the very stones. Only recently had the song of this place taken on notes of joy. In the face of her loyalty, she who had waited for her mortal love most of his lifetime, he felt a little ashamed, reluctant to let her steady gaze examine his wildly unsteady heart.

"I am not a child any more," Arwen pulled her embroidery basket towards herself, pulled out the half finished trim for a tunic, worked in gold and copper thread. "There's no need to shelter me, whatever it is." She looked up, gauging whether her words had hit home, and smiled, radiantly. "Grandfather, I've always known you had faults. Mother used to list them, trying to persuade me not to go to Lorien for the summer. It never worked. It never worked for her either - we loved you anyway."

She certainly had her grandmother's way of seeing into the soul. He almost laughed at being read so easily. "This is a fault about which your mother was ignorant. I know not what she would make of it, but I fear she would take it ill."

"What was it you used to say to me?" Arwen found a green thread, measured off three handspans and snapped it off in her teeth. "Say it quickly. Then it will be out, and we can deal with it."

This time he really did laugh. Was all his advice so hard to take? He turned his face away from hers, looked at the fire, shadows racing over the embers, the hot, fierce colour. Took a breath, as one about to dive from a great height, and leapt. "I am being haunted by the ghost of an old lover," he said. "Someone I loved long before I met your grandmother. Who died a long time ago. Who I thought I had long since laid to rest. He will not let me be, and I do not know how to get him to stop."

She looked up, startled. Hurt, maybe. He cursed himself for speaking; for burdening her with this, when she had so few years left to live, and deserved to have them full of joy. But it was out now, and it must be dealt with.

"He?" Arwen asked, and he remembered she was much among Men these days. Men, who - being mortal - needed to breed, and who therefore had a low opinion of childless love. Why had he not found a different confidante? One whose good opinion he was not terrified of losing?

But he could feel only surprise, not revulsion from her, so he smiled ruefully, as he did when speaking of the drowned beauty of Doriath, or the small tales of his grandfather with which he had once entertained her in childhood. "Elu."

"Elwë? Elwë, the father of Luthien?"

"Yes," Celeborn admitted, fear leaving him, a strange, giddy lightness taking its place. "It was a brief thing, I suppose. We came together not long before the host of the Teleri reached the Anduin. We had perhaps fifty years in bliss. But then my mother found out." He shook his head, even now it made his voice shake to remember those days, the days of death, before Galadriel came.

"She made it clear to us that our love could not be allowed to continue. By various ways - I won't go into them - she persuaded us that the only decent thing to do was to part. And so we did." His fingers hurt. Looking down he found that they were twisted together, white knuckled, and the solid silver stem of his goblet was bowing slightly under their pressure. He was leaving dents in the metal.

"It was the worst time of my life. We left the river behind us and climbed the Misty Mountains - ah, they were raw in those days. Rough rock that cut through your boots as you walked, that took the skin off you if you fell. Bitter cold; killing cold." Laughing humourlessly, he put the wineglass down before he could damage it further. "Death, outside and in," he said, forcing the words out, though his throat was closed with remembered pain. "I remember wanting everything to end - the world to go away. I wanted the Eternal Void to swallow me. I wanted not to be, any more.

"I believe that Elu suffered too, but they kept us apart, so I know not, for certain. But I do understand that when he met Melian he had been alone and desolate for many years, and she healed him. Whatever else I might feel, for that alone she has my eternal gratitude."

"It still must have hurt!" Arwen's voice was soft, not with outrage but with pity. Expecting condemnation, pity seemed to unlock the spring of his grief, as though a thaw had come. Fifty years? Had it been so short a time? Yet they had been the only years of his thousands when he had been completely at peace.

"He disappeared," he explained. "I had time to think him dead, and to mourn him. When he came back he was changed. Taller, more radiant, more splendid; like a Maia, and I told myself that _my_ Elu was now forever gone. That I should move on."

The embroidery lay disregarded across her lap. Now she moved it away and leaned forward to take his hand, the surprise in her gaze replaced by deep, healing compassion, as she read his mind and heart. "But you could not."

"No." He felt his eyes well with tears, turned back to the fire swiftly to sniff them back. "No. At first it was easier. I had also changed. While the King was gone, my grandfather Elmo ruled, and I aided him. I was now full grown, mature. Elu greeted the change with pleasure, and - I have no doubt - told himself that the beautiful youth with whom he had fallen in love was also gone, past recall.

It should have ended thus - a harmless youthful experiment, outgrown. But the truth was that before long I was as much in love with his new self as I had been with his old. My whole life became a battle against desire, against the dreams, against my obsession with him. So when your grandmother arrived in Doriath, like the sun arising in fire, and eclipsed him, I cleaved to her as if to sanity. We went East and left it behind us, and there it has stayed, until now.

Now she is gone from me, and once more he visits my dreams and haunts my waking hours. He is wed, and I am wed. Death and the Sundering Seas lie between us. Yet I love him still - _I still love him_ - and I do not know what to do."

"Oh, Daerada!" Arwen rose and went again to the window. The drizzle had turned into a steady rain. Its chill voice chattered over the roof and through the many downspouts of the house with a peaceful music. But the damp was blowing in and splashes of water lay on the bright tiles of the floor, and the embroidered flowers of the bedcurtains. She closed the glass, and the rain beat on it like the wings of birds.

Returning, she went not to her seat but to kneel close to him, the fire's moving light casting shades of honey over her dark hair, turning the silver ornament of her grey dress into sumptuous gold. Leaning forward, she put her hands on his knee and rested her head on them briefly, as she had done in childhood. Without needing to think, he rested his hand on the spilled midnight of her hair. A benediction.

She looked up, smiling. "Now I understand why you never tried to separate me from Aragorn; why you never imposed the stupid conditions on our union that Father did. How I wish I had defied him forty years ago and run off with Aragorn as Luthien did with Beren. Elessar will _never_ see those forty years again! Our time is so short, and I wasted it in duty."

She leant back on her heels, alight with a kind of fey recklessness, and now at last he could see himself in her. How ironic to pass on only one's worst traits. "Do you not regret it now, Daerada? Do you not rue giving up a love so powerful for the sake of a duty that is now long past? I would."

He shook his head. What a question! "How can I?" he said, "How can I regret a love which gave me Celebrian, which gave me you?"

Taking one of the little pasties she broke it open, nibbled on it thoughtfully. The fire settled, snapping, and the rain drew serpents on the window against the darkening sky. Scents of butter and spices filled the warm air. He took up his bent wine glass and drank in strange content, briefly eased.

"You know," said Arwen at last, in a drowsy, contemplative tone. "My blood descends from Elu Thingol, through Father, and from you, through Mother. Your lines met and mixed in me. In a way you could say that I was your child - his and yours."

_Iluvatar!_ The thought hit him like an arrow, as sudden and as shocking. Oh, there had been moments of weakness in which he had thought it himself, right from the moment when Celebrian began to speak admiringly of Elrond, but to hear her say it! To hear her say it herself! He wrestled with the impulse to throw himself to his knees by her, take her in his arms and beg her not to leave him, not to take on Aragorn's fate. _Don't die, Arwen! Don't die!_

But he held it back, said instead, "In a way. Every love I have ever had has met in you, beloved daughter, and I am so proud of you. Even if you have not - with your vaunted wisdom - managed to answer my question. What should I do?"

Arwen laughed, though her eyes were suspiciously bright, brought almost to weep for his pain. He was glad now that he had shared this with her, shown her how much he trusted and valued her, before it was too late.

"You do not need my advice," she said gently. "You already know."

"I suppose I do," he admitted, thinking back on his attempt to beat the phantom back with his fists. "I need to confront the problem and solve it. But how do you confront memory? How do you fight the tides of your own soul - things unacknowledged for thousands of years? I am no expert on these inner battlefields; I have always done my fighting against foes of flesh, not of spirit."

"With any knot," Arwen smiled, "the best way to unravel it is to find an end. If you can find the place where this tangle all began, perhaps the next step will be waiting for you there. If there is such a place?"

A dry cave in the centre of a river; a storm of falling stars; the place where he had been lifted out of death by the hand of a Vala, only to wake surrounded by the love of a king. "There is," he said; afraid and excited, but no longer helpless. "If the earth has not swallowed it over the centuries. I will find it. I will turn and confront that which haunts me, and have the truth out of it."

"Whatever the answer turns out to be?"

His heart quailed at the thought of dishonour, the thought of madness, if he was not strong enough deal with this, to cleave to both love and duty. But he was a warrior, and knew better than to take the counsel of fear. "Yes," he said, determined. "The truth will be enough for me. Whatever it is."


	2. Chapter 2

The rain was coming down hard, sheets of solid silver driving across the deer trail, filling the dark afternoon with the scent of mud. 

Celeborn glanced up at the sky, shielding his eyes from the downpour. Cloud like the grief of Nienna hung low and dense above. Before him, following the river, into whose brown water the rain fell with a hiss, a trail wound away. Wet gorse slapped against his legs, had to be ducked as his horse picked its way patiently onwards. 

Adjusting his cloak against the downpour, _for though it troubles me not, I dislike rain down my neck as much as any Mortal,_ he smiled. _Hardier than they we are, unnecessarily foolish we are not, and wet is wet, immortal or no._

Oaks clung onto the riverbank with gnarled roots, their branches too sodden to provide shelter. The current ran fast and deep beneath them, swollen by the rain and in uncompromising mood. As you were then, river daughter, he thought with a nod of respect to the rushing water. 

Stretching his senses beyond the rain, he thought of the past; and of his grandsons, in whom, like Arwen, his line had mixed with that of Elu. They had accompanied him - for even now orcs and other dark creatures were too numerous in these lands for Elf or Mortal to travel alone in the wilds - and he had been obscurely aware of resemblances in their faces he had not allowed himself to see before. This whole journey was a strange alignment of the ancient with the present. Eerie, as though Doriath had risen from the sea, and he was now walking open eyed in the weed-bedecked paths of another world, taking his daughter's children with him. 

A short while ago, moved by delicacy - a desire to be private with his struggles - he had bid them wait for him under the trees close to a green meadow that sloped down to the gliding water. The place had changed so much; ancient trees had fallen, the river changed course to wash over it twice, three times, leaving new silt, new stones. No one would now recognize it by sight, and yet... He smiled again, and remembered how they had looked around themselves, Elrohir going to one knee, touching the soft earth. His grey eyes - so like his mother's - sought Celeborn's, "The Teleri were here once, I can hear their voices." 

Celeborn had nodded, voice soft with memory. "We camped here for several days, a host of us." 

"And you celebrated," Elladan stirred beneath his hood, hands running lightly over the bark of a tall beech. "The trees hold the songs, pulling them out of the deep earth as water in their roots. Their tale is of light and life amid toil and weariness." He turned his head, gaze sharpening suddenly as he looked at his grandfather, but he said nothing. And that was the wisdom of Elrond, and of Galadriel - to see, and not to say, lest the words prove too heavy for a delicate world. 

Elrohir raised his eyes, and now both of them were looking at him keenly. In their minds, the land sung of a young warrior who danced a deadly dance with a king, and they wondered at it. 

He had not enlightened them, and they had not asked. Secrets between them were few, and if one were kept, it was not to be questioned, merely respected. Elladan smiled, touching Celeborn's shoulder as Elrohir moved to make temporary camp under what little shelter was to be found among the trees, moving with the ease of one long practised, "We will wait here then, daerada. Call if you need us." 

Grateful for their silence and their love both, Celeborn had grasped the hand on his shoulder a moment before mounting his horse and turning it back onto the river path. The twins had watched him go, then turned as one to the setting up of the small camp. Ever had it been thus with them. They moved as one, fought as one, at times even seemed to think as one. Sentences begun by one would be effortlessly finished by the other, seamlessly, without any consultation. The griefs and joys of each were the same for the other; the bond of twinship making them almost one fëa. 

Celeborn remembered a time when Elrohir, tending an injured, fevered Elladan, had lain beside his brother and pulled him into the curve of his own body, singing softly to his agitated twin. Elladan's restlessness had immediately quieted and both twins had slept, Elrohir holding his brother to him with fierce protectiveness, Elladan's head pillowed on his twin's arm. They were united as only those who have shared the same womb can be, and though it was no secret in either Lórien or Imladris that the warrior sons of Elrond, fair of face and form as they were, each had their share of lovers, they had cleaved to none. 

Should they ever marry, he knew with certainty, still would their link remain undiminished. It would take special elves, elves worthy of his grandsons, to understand and accept such a bond. In the face of his own losses, he blessed the Powers that, whatever befell, his grandsons would never know the gnawing, empty ache of loneliness that paced like a shadow behind him. The shadow of the West. 

For a moment, he called to mind hair as silver as his own, spoke to that loved presence in his heart. _They will come, my daughter, I am sure of it. Give them but time enough. _

He thought then of Elu, made childless by Luthien's choice, and wondered how it would be to bring him these scions of his own blood. Would he be as proud of them as Celeborn himself was? Or would their relationship to an once lover, put aside several ages ago, dim them in his sight, so that Thingol could not look on them in comfort? 

And why, Valar _why_ did he still care? 

With that thought, Celeborn now touched that place within himself which said, Elu. Holding himself from the emotional tangle of the name, he sought to confirm to himself how far he was from his goal. Odd, how a memory could be so imprinted in the fëa that one could fly to its source like a dove returning unerring to its home, though the whole world lay between. 

Almost, he smiled at that; _am I a pigeon, or a salmon to have such instincts?_ The king would have laughed at the idea, for they had neither of them been philosophers. Galadriel would have said nothing, her eyes as ever hinting at secrets only she could perceive, her head at that mocking angle which told him that Arda held no mystery for her after Aman. 

At the thought of his wife, he frowned. Something had stirred in his mind; something wavering, as if across a fire - when rising heat made the image indistinct. Was she trying to touch his thoughts, as she had not done since she left? Was the distance too far even for her, so he received only this tantalizing hint, this frustrating _something_? Unsure, he breathed deep and surrendered to the sending, and this time it came clear. All was changed before his eyes, and he looked on a place he had never seen. 

It seemed a hall, so vast he could not see its walls. Or...no, it had no walls. No, that too was not quite... it had walls of crystal, through which the outside could be seen, but strangely; a jumble of light and forms, indistinct and distant. The roof was of crystal also, and let in a light the purity of which pierced his heart. Radiance fell in shimmering waves to the pale floor, where it fractured into a fume of shifting rainbows. 

At one end of the hall stood a dais, on which sat an empty throne. There knelt an elf woman, her pale gold hair unbound, flowing like water over her slim, proud shoulders. Galadriel. He stared at her, frowning, unsettled by her posture. It was not submissive; it was not in her to be so, not even in this place, wherever it was. But respect there was in plenty. And he could see, in the quiet way her hands were folded across her knees, the fingers tightly curled, some hint of fear. What could she fear? She, who had never been afraid of anything? 

Her blue gown, sewn with tiny jewelled flowers of silver and gold, fell about her in soft folds, accentuating her captivating grace. It spanned slender shoulders which were pulled straight and proud, poured down the line of her back, that elegant curve along which he had loved to trail his fingers as they lay talking in Lorien, drowsy and content, with the song of nightbirds and soft breezes playing over their wide bed. But no memory of warmth seemed to cling in that place. In the crystal hall, her soft, sad posture seemed removed, alien, and he shivered involuntarily at the sight. 

Perhaps it was merely the rain's cold touching him, making the vision take on that foreboding chill. Telling himself that it must be so, he let the image fade. It would do no good to dwell on it. Its significance, if it had any, would become clear in time. With his practical nature, Celeborn did not try to force the knowledge. There was turmoil enough already in his mind and heart. 

Uncertainty, anticipation and fear warred within him, but the sharp stab of loss cut suddenly through all; so keenly he had to bite hard on his lip to drive himself through it - the outer pain drawing his mind from the inner. He wanted to do this, needed to do this, but now the moment was at hand he knew himself reluctant to face the past, reluctant to reopen wounds it had taken a thousand years to close. For one wild moment, he almost fled; almost ran away, and there was some tincture of self-disgust in his mood as he stopped, slid from his horse and faced the surging river. 

The rain had eased somewhat, but the great waterfall now filled the air with its thunder and spray. Celeborn walked as if in a waking dream, the music of the water stirring memories more ancient than the rocks. What good was this doing? Fear and longing battled in him, his hand closed about the hilt of his sword, for mere reassurance. What waited for him, returning as he was to the beginnings of his life - rebirth? Or ruin? 

With a sound of mingled impatience and frustration he paused. A hawthorn had grasped his trailing hair with thorny fingers, bringing him up short. It had been a very, very long time since any tree had treated him with such disrespect, and he turned at once, feeling the approach of a power before which he was indeed little but a child. She was there. The lady of this wood. Though they had not yet met, he knew her: Elu had told him of her as they lay amid the furs in their haven. 

"It was as though all the light of every forest were hers, every call of a bird, each sharp scent, every bough and every leaf are hers." Elu had looked down into Celeborn's listening expression and kissed him slowly, lifting his head to murmur, "She let me come to you, without her blessing, this could never have been..." 

The words echoed in memory as he stared now into the fathomless green of her eyes. He bowed his head, hearing her voice in his mind, her words softer than water, clearer than starlight, "What do you here, Celeborn of Doriath?" 

He raised his head, "Few now name me so, Lady" 

She smiled, "Should I call you then Lord of the Golden Wood, husband to Galadriel?" The green gaze bore neither pity nor accusation, she merely waited for his answer, surrounded by the boughs and grasses of her bower, as she would wait he thought with sudden knowledge, until the ending of the world. She knew why he had come. 

"I am both, Lady," he said with pride - a familiar mantle, worn with ease after all these years of earning it. "Prince of Doriath, Lord of Lórien. My wife I love and honour as I have always done, without reservation. What business I have with him whom I seek, whom once I adored, I do not know. An ending, perhaps. I beg you will not hinder it." 

The Lady touched her fingers to his arm, then, unexpectedly, his lips. Her touch was cool; timeless and alive. "You and he bear like courage," she smiled. "I marked it in him then and I see it in you now. Though not named king, a king you are, as great as he, and perhaps, as flawed." Stepping back from him, she seated herself in her living throne, lifting her hand to receive the touch of a willow branch as it bent toward her, considering him. "Go then, Celeborn, lover and beloved of Thingol Greycloak, seek what you will in that place you fear and long for. I give you my blessing as I gave it to him." 

As she finished speaking, he found himself kneeling at her feet, having instinctively bowed to her rightful rule. At the touch of cool lips on his brow, he closed his eyes. When he opened them again, she was gone. He knelt in wet grass, with only the sensation of light on his arm and brow to tell him she had been there at all. Awe and wonder were in his heart, knowing that he had borne witness to a being few even dreamt of. So it must have been for Elu, reverence breaking through, despite the wild fear which had held him its grip as he had sought to reach Celeborn across the raging water. 

He got to his feet and turned once more to face the river, surprised to find the cave before him. He had not truly expected it to remain, unscathed by the frosts and storms of millennia. The river should have washed it away by now, and time left him nothing to return to. Yet there it was, unchanged. A gift of the Lady, perhaps. What on earth had either of them done to earn such tender care? 

The flood was quiet now, at Her command, and he swam across easily, pulling himself out onto the far bank. Oblivious to the breeze, he stood staring at the cave where so long ago, he had known for the first time the touch of a lover. 

Surely it should mean more? Instead, he felt frozen, trapped in an unchanging instant, numb and alone. Catching himself, he made a sound of impatience, and took the step which would bring him into the cave. 

He stood still, looking about himself. The walls were dull now, with no reflected firelight to light them to golden brilliance. The sandy floor had been disturbed by many years of swirling breezes, but he walked forward unerringly, drawn to the place where their furs had lain, where he had found a love so powerful it shivered across his skin even now. Crouching, he trailed his fingers through the fine sand over the spot, drawing idle patterns. He looked up, to the small pool at the rear of the cave. It had been cold, that pool, but its waters had been refreshing, when drunk from a horn cup brought by the hands of a lover who had just brought such ecstasy to his body. 

He rose, looking down at the floor, unseeing, while the breeze off the river lifted his drying hair off the back of his neck, blowing his tunic against him playfully, as though a hard body leaned lightly into his. Why am I here? There is naught here but memories, naught but dry sand and cold rock. There is nothing of him here, nothing of us. 

_Ah, is there not, Celeborn-nin?_

He whirled, hand dropping to the knife he carried, staring into the familiar face. Shocked, he fell back a step. _You are not here. You cannot be here..._ But even to himself, his voice sounded uncertain. Was it truth? Or was he at last succumbing to madness? Staring at Elu, he blinked hard, but this time the image of the king did not fade, remained solid, alive and - he reached out a hand - so warm! 

Thingol's smile was loving and gently mocking all at once. _Why so shocked, melethron? With such longing as yours, how could I be anything but real?_ The tall figure took a step forward, another, and at last he stood so close that Celeborn could feel the heat from the powerful body against his own skin. Gritting his teeth, he drew a shuddering breath. 

"Because you are dead, Elu. Do not torment me with visions, if it is you at all and not some cruel jest sent to remind me of what cannot be." 

A large hand came to rest over his swift beating heart, as if to claim it. Grey eyes stared into his own. For long moments, they watched each other, then the king leaned forward, brushed his lips over Celeborn's, murmured against his mouth, "Does this feel real, Telpë?" Long fingers brushed aside the heavy fall of Celeborn's hair from the pulse racing in his neck, and a moment later, he gasped as warm lips suckled it gently. "Does this?" 

One touch, and all the long years of rule and lordship fell away. Power, experience, the long battle against the dark, all counted for nothing, were forgotten under the heat of that mouth, the caress of those fingers. Celeborn tried for reason, grasping after it, yet desperately wanting it to elude him. Wanting to be weak, wanting to be overwhelmed, to give in. "Elu..." 

"Please, my prince, do not speak,. It has been my one wish these years to touch you again, love you again. Do not deny me now." I beg you. The words were unspoken but there as clearly as if they had been uttered aloud. Celeborn's eyes, which had slid shut, opened now in surprise. Never had he heard that tone from Thingol, that note of pleading beneath the deep, rich warmth of the king's voice. It sounded for all the world as though Elu suffered the same torment he did, the same desperate, hopeless longing. 

Shaking his head in the only answer he could give, Celeborn reached out, made a sound deep in his throat as his hands met the hard, warm flesh of Elu's back where the king wore neither shirt nor tunic. Ai, his skin was damp from the rain! And as if that touch proved beyond doubt that this was real, Celeborn immediately slid his hands lower, caught Elu to him as though he might disappear. A low laugh which turned to a hiss of pleasure greeted the movement, as Celeborn dug his fingers into the firm muscles he found beneath his hands. 

It no longer mattered that this was not possible, not allowed, not _right_ - possibly not even happening at all, except in waking dream. He didn't care. Right, or real, he would have it nevertheless, let everything else burn. 

"I missed you so.." he whispered into the heavy steel-silver of Elu's hair, pressing his lips to the shining strands, feeling their warmth. Its scent surrounded him; uniquely, enticingly Elu - cinnamon and open skies, the sea and the elusive scent that he knew was of Aman. As one starved, he inhaled it, tipped his head back and savoured it as the mouth he had so longed for came back to his, drank from him and tasted him with equal hunger. 

Urgent hands begged him with their touch to lie on the sandy ground. This was no dream, then, there was no softness beneath him now, only the fine sand, which shifted under him as he moved to accommodate Elu's weight. He felt his tunic being undone, a warm hand slip inside, beneath his shirt, to ghost across the muscles of his chest. In his ear, a deep, aching murmur came, "Ahhh, you are so beautiful, not even memory could compare, melethron..." 

The words dissolved against Celeborn's skin, were drowned out by his gasp as Elu's capable fingers brushed his hardening length. He shifted once more, and suddenly rolled them so that he was the one lying atop a startled Elu, who looked up at him in momentary confusion. Then those eyes closed as Elu moved his head aside in open invitation, hands roaming over Celeborn's body, tempting and caressing, making him groan with the sweet fire of it. He leant forward, framing Elu's face with his hands so that he could kiss him, slipping his tongue into the mouth he had longed for, so different from... 

He froze, as though the icy waters of the river only now touched him, mind surfacing from the need and bliss and selfishness. 

What was he doing? 

"No.." Valar! It hurt, it hurt him to turn back, but "no." He lifted his head, eyes closed as he struggled for calm. Reluctantly, he opened them to find Elu staring up at him, desire and pain warring with understanding in the grey gaze, and something else, something indefinable... 

"You think of Galadriel." The words were spoken with finality and resignation, but no trace of guilt, no remorse. It horrified him, and he pulled away abruptly, run through by the knowledge of what could so easily have happened. Even now his body needed, demanded Elu, with staggering intensity. Ruthlessly, he forced the desire away, bringing his body and his mind under control. Much though he might want to be overwhelmed, he knew it would be a lie. He was no longer a green youth, no longer the youngster in the throes of his first love, dizzied by his emotions and desire. He had ruled his own lands, married and loved, raised children and borne loss and endless war. There was no excuse - he had the strength, and right, and duty to end this now. 

"Who else? She is my wife." Shock and disgust at his own actions made the words harsher than Celeborn had intended them, filled them with self-loathing. Turning away, he pulled his tunic closed with rough, angry movements. "She is my wife, my beloved. I will not betray her. We loved and fought together for longer than you and I, and do not forget, my lord king, you found one who suited you better." 

He grimaced, knowing his words were cruel, remembered pain twisting his mouth, pain he had thought himself long reconciled to. "Have you forgotten Melian? Melian, for whom you gave up your dreams, and ours, and who paid us back with desertion." He stopped, surprised at his own vehemence. Surely he had loved and respected Melian, whatever pain it had cost him to see her with the elf he adored? Long, long before he had even met Galadriel, he had thought that jealousy overcome. It seemed he was wrong. 

As Elu remained quiet and the silence spun out between them, he deliberately opened his memories of Galadriel; coming to their wedding, her gown of pale gold, her skin lit from within by the glow of Aman, her hands full of flowers like those in her hair. Those same hands raised as she brought down the walls and uprooted the very foundations of Dol Guldur, slim and terrible and utterly merciless. Those same strong hands had held out mallorn blossom to him as she laughed, the gaze of her eyes reaching to his heart. Her slim body had trembled beneath his, as she cried out his name, clutching him to her as they loved. And at the last even her hands had trembled in his, heartbreakingly fragile, as she turned away and took ship at the Havens, her eyes dry and spent. 

As if in sympathy, he felt a warm hand on his back. The touch meant to reassure, but did nothing of the kind, laying him open to more agony than he could easily bear. 

Voice shaking with grief and terrible, thwarted desire, Celeborn rejected the silent gesture. "There is nothing between us, my lord. There never should have been. We were fools then, and now we are worse than fools. I love Galadriel. I will not taint that nor play traitor! We are Quendi - we feel no desire for any but our mate once bound, you know this as well as I do - and by that measure this is a falsehood, a dream. It is not real, and I do not wish it to be." 

Elbereth! That he should have to defend his honour by lying! But it should not be a lie, it should be the truth, and he would force himself to make it the truth though it killed him. "Now be gone and plague me no longer. I weary of you." 

Yet as he felt the hand on his back fall away, he wanted to scream out loud at its loss. _Touch me again, I need you to touch me, I love you!_ But he stayed silent, waiting for Elu's reaction to his words. It did not come. Only silence met the finality of his statement, the cold starkness of it. When he could no longer stand it, he turned, wanting a reaction, needing something. 

Elu was gone. 

oo0O0oo 

Fire snapped and crackled in the wide hearth, casting shifting shadows into the room. Thingol sat before it, head bowed in deep sorrow. At length he stirred and reached forward, trembling slightly, to lift the kettle of wine off the blaze and pour the steaming liquid into a silver cup. His pale hair turned to molten gold in the amber light. 

"Did you see my father?" A quiet voice reached him from the doorway, where she stood, cloaked against the cool of the spring night, watching him. Celeborn's child. 

"Yes." He offered no more, took a sip from the cup. 

Celebrian came into the room, sighing. It had gone badly, even had she been unable to see the slump of the king's powerful shoulders, the welling glisten of his eyes, she would have been able to feel it, like a storm sunk into the very stones. "What happened?" 

"He loves Galadriel." A simple statement of fact, spoken with finality, "That will never change." 

She turned a calm, but vehement gaze on him, moving to touch his shoulder. "Of course he loves her. Did you expect him to say otherwise?" 

There was something hawklike about his grief, she thought; hunched up and sullen, full of anger. Kingly and magnificent as he was, he did not seem to know what to do when the world thwarted him - too used to it acquiescing instantly to his demands. It was at such rare times she could easily imagine him as the unjust father in the tales - doing evil to Beren, locking his own daughter up when she would not accept his protection. 

Evidently, he had gone into this just as certain he would prevail, handled it in the worst possible way, and been rebuffed. Now all was made even more difficult, if that was possible. 

"He has lost her but recently, and even had he not, still would he love her. My father's heart is not lightly turned from those he loves. You know that." Why else would he remain so far away, and all this tangle so irrevocable, if not for the constancy of his nature, and a stubbornness that easily rivalled Elu's? "Has he sensed it?" 

The king gave a slight nod, his smile wry, skirting the edge of bitterness. "He has, but he does not yet know what it signifies. He thinks he starts at shadows, yet within him there is more grace than he knows. Your mother knew. It is why she loved him, I think. Why she let herself love him. He thinks himself a simple elf, for all he has done." 

Celebrian smiled, eyes on the fire, remembering. "Few know him as we do. Simple as the land he loves and as deep." She lifted her head and placed a reassuring hand on his arm. "There is still hope." 

The laugh was soft, "Perhaps. But I think not until he sails, and not even then is it certain. I saw his spirit, he is not ready to heal. He is not ready to forgive me, nor to trust me again with a heart I once broke. Mayhap he will never be." 

Celebrian frowned, surprised at this new vulnerability in him - a worn tiredness she had never seen before. "You sound as though you would let him go, as though you will not fight for him." 

At that, he looked up, meeting her eyes. She blinked, taken aback. If he was softer, it was only as the shine on a sword becomes softer with the many scratches of use. His voice was full of the power and command that was effortlessly, utterly his, "I will fight." 

It was enough. Celebrian left the fire, came to him, smiling. Kissing his brow she murmured, "Then there is hope indeed." 

She gathered her cloak about her and went home. A gust of cool air stirred the ends of his hair as she left. 

Alone before the fire, Elu Thingol bowed his head and wept. 


End file.
